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ARGUMENT 



MABE BEFORE A 



JOIKT COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATUKE 
OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

IdLA^Y 17, 1869, 

AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A 

State Police in the City of Boston, 



BY 



CLEMENT HUGH HILL 



Phonographicalet Reported by Henry Oviatt. 



ii 



ao 




BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, CITY POINTERS, 3i SCHOOL STREET. 

1869. 



ARGUMENT 



Mr, Chairman and Gentlemen, — 

I must congratulate you upon the very agreeable prospect oi 
the speedy termination of your labors ; for I am much afraid 
that, whatever else may be the result of this long investigation, 
it has already resulted in making most of us heartily weary of 
it, and I apprehend that for some years to come the very name 
of police will have disagreeable associations with the stifling 
air of a crowded room, with hearings protracted until midnight, 
and with unfortunate misunderstandings and altercations, which 
were painful to us at the time, and which we shall always regret. 
Under these circumstances I can assure you that I shall say no 
more to-night as counsel for the City of Boston, on whose behalf 
I now appear, than I am absolutely compelled to, and that the 
few thoughts and suggestions that I shall submit towards 
enabling the committee to arrive at a right conclusion upon the 
important question before it will be condensed as much as 
possible. 

With regard to the specific charges of corruption made 
against certain members of the Boston Police force I shall say 
nothing; for if the very able and powerful argument of the 
learned counsel"^ who appeared for these gentlemen has not con- 
vinced the committee of the utter groundlessness — I might say 
the absolute falsehood — of those charges, I am afraid that no 
poor efibrt of mine will do so. I shall proceed at once to 

*Mr. Foster. 



address myself to the subject that has called the committee 
together ; namely, whether it is expedient to establish a State 
Police in the City of Boston. I have not been so fortunate as 
to see any of the bills or plans that have been laid before the 
committee for their consideration ; but I take it that several 
different plans have already been and will be brought before 
you, and that one proposition will be to establish a State Police 
all over the Commonwealth in town and country alike ; that 
another will be to establish what is called a Metropolitan Police 
(I do not know that we can get any better term for it) in Boston, 
and the towns and cities which are suburban to Boston ; and a 
third to establish a police under the control of the Common- 
wealth in all the cities in the State, or in the City of Boston 
alone. 

The establishment of the first system — since I do not sup- 
pose that it is intended to give patrol duty to the State officers 
— would be really little more than an increase of the present 
State Constabulary, and to that we have no particular objection. 
We do not come here to make any charges against the State 
Constabulary. I consider it a very useful force, although I 
think it is very possible that, if the committee had time to inves- 
tigate the subject, the same kind of charges which have been 
brought here against the Boston police force might as easily be 
brought against this. If the committee sees fit to report a bill 
to the legislature increasing the State Constabulary force, and 
leaving the police of the City of Boston as it now is, then the 
City of Boston, speaking iu its corporate capacity, has no ob- 
jection to it, and will make no opposition to it ; and I am not 
certain but it would be a very beneficial piece of legislation. If, 
however, it is intended either to establish in Boston, or in Boston 
and its suburbs, or in all the cities of the Commonwealth, a 
police force similar to the police force we now have, and which 
is either to supersede or to be in addition to it, then I am here 
to oppose it. And I oppose it on grounds which I think unan- 



swerable ; the principal of which is that it is entirely unneces- 
sary. 

Now, gentlemen, I suppose there is no person on your com- 
mittee who will not admit that a force of that kind is contrary to 
the maxims and theories of government in Massachusetts. I am 
not now saying whether our maxims and traditions are right or 
wrong ; but it is undoubtedly true that, following that system of 
government which has always prevailed in the country whence 
our institutions are derived, ever since the Pilgrim Fathers 
landed on the bleak coast of New England, the theory of all our 
institutions has been that of local self-government. The idea 
has always been that as far as possible, to as great an extent as 
possible, it is best to make all the officers who administer local 
affairs, and attend to the local enforcement of the laws, directly 
and immediately responsible to the people of the locality ; and 
then, if the people of any neighborhood have objections to their 
selectmen or constables, or (since cities have been incorporated) 
to their mayors or aldermen, they can at once dismiss them and 
elect others. If there are any wrongs in the local government, 
any corruptions prevailing in it, the people of the vicinage can 
at once apply a remedy by dismissing the local officers and ap- 
pointing others in their stead. I do not think, Mr. Chairman 
and gentlemen, that there is any member of the committee who 
will deny that that is the theory of New England government. 
That theory has now prevailed for over two hundred and thirty 
years; it has been growing with our growth and increasing 
with our prosperity,' till it has become a principle of government, 
renowned over the entire civilized world. It has been the 
foundation of the local governments of all the rest of the states 
of this great Union, as also of the adjacent British provinces, 
and has been praised by statesmen, philosophers and travellers 
from the Old World. Now, this system of government has many 
great advantages, — advantages of such magnitude and im- 
portance that I do not believe the people of Massachusetts are 



yet ready to dispense with them. And undoubtedly it has 
defects also ; undoubtedly there are respects in which this form 
of government is not so beneficial as a government of another 
kind would be: but we must remember, gentlemen, that the 
question, whether any form of government is wise and beneficial, 
is not to be decided by the fact that incidentally it may bring 
either benefits or evils, but whether the general tendency of the 
government is good or bad. That is the question you are to 
decide. There cannot be any human institutions which have 
not their evils as well as their benefits, which have not their dis- 
advantages as well as their advantages, against which very 
strong arguments may not be brought as well as arguments in 
their favor. All human governments and all human institutions 
are defective, and, as firmly as we believe in this country in the 
wisdom of our democratic government, and in our local self- 
government, they have inherent evils as well as all others. The 
question is, whether, upon a balance of the good and evil) the 
good does not preponderate. If it does, then I argue that this 
particular form of government is best suited to our circum- 
stances ; and that is all that I need say. 

Now New England government is this : Each town manages 
its own local affairs. The people of the town meet in town- 
meeting, — in many places in a hall not larger than this,"^ as the 
members of the committee know, — and there freely discuss and 
decide all questions of local government, — decide what taxes 
they shall lay, what schoolhouses they shall build, whether they 
shall do this or that j and there annually elect all town officers, 
including constables. The town-meeting has been very properly 
called the nursery of American statesmen ; and one of the most 
distinguished, thoughtful and critical political philosophers has 
pointed out that, whatever may be the drawbacks of New Eng- 
land institutions, the town governments do create good citizens, 

*The Green Eoom at tlie State House. 



and that we cannot create equally good ones in any other way. 
He has likewise said, — and I shall in a few moments ask leave 
of the committee to read a few passages from him, — that, while 
a constitutional convention may devise a form of government, 
may create a government with all its innumerable ramifications, 
the spirit of loyalty, devotion and independence which is engen- 
dered by local municipal institutions can'iot be created by any 
constitutional convention, no matter how wise its members may 
be. That must be the growth of time. 

I know that this subject of the police has never been before 
the legislature when these remarks of M. De Tocqueville in his 
work on this country have not been referred to, and I should 
perhaps relieve you by not reading them at all; but he 
expresses what I want to say so much better than I can express 
it myself, that I am sure you would rather hear this eminent 
Frenchman's statement of the principles of our government in 
his own words than to listen to any paraphrase of his opinions 
from me. I am reading from the first volume of the London 
edition of 1835, The author says : — 

"The difficulties wMch attend the consolidation of its [the town's] inde- 
pendence rather aug nent than diminish with the increasing enlightenment 
of the people. A highly civilized community spurns the attempts of a 
local independence, is disgusted at its numerous blunders, and is apt to 
despair of success before the experiment is completed." ..." Never- 
theless, local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. 
Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science ; they 
they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and 
how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, 
but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of 
liberty." 

And in another place he says : — 

"They [the towns] are independent in all that concerns themselves; 
and, amongst the inhabitants of New England, I believe that not a man is 
to be found who would acknowledge that the State has any right to inter- 
fere in their local interests." 

This statement is rather stronger than the facts will justify. 



8 



I shall make but one other quotation. The author says further 
on: — 

*' In Europe the absence of local public spirit is a frequent subject of 
regret to those who are in power; every one agrees that there is no 
surer guaranty of order and tranquillity, and yet nothing is more difficult 
to create. If the municipal bodies were made powerful and independent, 
the authorities of the nation might be disunited, and the peace of the 
country endangered. Yet, without power and independence, a town may 
contain 'good [subjects, but it can have no active citizens." — Democracy 
in America i vol. 1., pp. 72, 73, 81, 83. 

M. De Tocqueville belonged to that nation which formerly 
had very remarkable local and municipal institutions^ the foun- 
dations of which were gradually sapped away by the old mon- 
archy and afterwards entirely destroyed by the revolution, and 
the whole country divided into arbitrary districts in accordance 
with that mathematical precision which the French love to apply 
to everything. The result is^ that all power is centralized in 
PariS; and now there exists the most perfect bureaucracy that 
the world has ever seen. If insurgents can obtain possession of 
Paris, and overthrow its authority there, they can change the 
government all over that large country. There is no local 
spirit, no local independence, no local thought; everything cen" 
tres in the metropolis. Now I admit that what we call the 
bureaucratic system of government has a great many attractive 
features which fascinate even thoughtful men, and I may men- 
tion one thing as a straw showing the way the current flows ; 
namely, the recent establishment in New York of a paper called 
the Imperialist, advocating for our own country an imperial 
form of government. Caesarism is, I believe, the modern term 
for it. I do not believe that there is yet any hope or fear of 
such a change, although I am not sorry that we are going to 
have a free discussion of the subject, for that will not hurt any 
institutions worthy to stand. But it is undeniable that for a 
long time there has been growing a contempt for, and a restive- 
ness under, our local system of government; such as De Tocque- 



ville foresaw, and which greatly increased during our civil war. 
Our danger at the present time lies in the direction of too much 
centralization. 

Our old town system was so imbedded in our constitution, 
and so bound up with our other institutions, that, as the honor- 
able chairman will remember, until 1820, when a special clause 
was inserted in the constitution for that purpose, it was sup- 
posed to be impossible for the legislature to iacorporate a city. 
Boston had 40,000 inhabitants before it had a city charter. 
And the honorable chairman will also recollect that, until we 
changed our municipal system of representation, the legislature 
had no power to unite two cities, however wise or necessary 
such union might be. In the famous case of Warren vs. The 
Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Charlestown, the Supreme 
Court so decided. Now I do not think it was the intention of 
those who framed the original constitution, ninety years ago, to 
prevent the legislature either from incorporating a city, or from 
uniting two cities or towns ; but the men who framed that instru- 
ment never dreamed that such a necessity would arise, and 
made no provision for it. And, when provision was made for 
incorporating cities in 1820, it was made subject to the con^ 
sent of the inhabitants. 

I am not going to trouble the committee to-night with a con- 
stitutional argument; for, should any bill be reported by the 
committee and passed by the legislature of doubtful constitution- 
ality, it will probably be my duty to argue the question before 
that tribunal which the constitution provides shall be the final 
judge of these questions. Yet in this connection I will say 
this, — that I think it is very possible that you will find, when you 
come to draft any statute (should you decide to report one), that 
it will be hard work to overcome some of the constitutional 
difficulties which will stand in your way, and to which I may 
allude hereafter, — not because the framers of the constitution 
ever intended to prohibit the legislature from establishing a 
2 



10 



police force of the proposed kind, for I do not think they ever 
intended to do so; but because they never expected such an 
innovation upon these local institutions, or any such infringe- 
ment of the principle of selfgovernment which lies at the 
bottom of them. 

Well; gentlemen, you will not deny that the proposition which 
is now before you is a very serious infringement of this princi- 
ple. If it be necessary, if there be any exigency which really 
demands it, you will be justified in adopting it. Government is 
made for man, and not man for government; and there is no 
system or form of government which in the abstract you can 
call the best, any more than there is such a thing as the best 
form of a man's coat, or the best form of a house for a man to 
live in. It depends entirely upon circumstances. But all 
change in itself is an evil; and, unless you have some very good 
reason, I do not think you can justify yourselves to your con- 
stituents for making so radical a change in our institutions as 
this one proposed will be, and as this one will lead to. There 
is a great deal of sterling common sense and political wisdom in 
the answer of the sturdy barons of old, ^' Nolumus leges Anglice 
rmitariy Bacon, the greatest philosopher of all time, in his 
essay on Innovations, tells us that '• it is good also not to try ex- 
periments in States, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility 
evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that 
draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that 
pretendeth the reformation." Certainly the burden lies on 
those who advocate a change in government to prove its neces- 
sity or desirability. 

I shall first consider the objections which have been urged 
against the present system of appointing the Boston police. To 
me a great many of these objections seem to be tinctured with what 
Archbishop Whately, if I remember rightly, in that excellent 
little treatise on Logic which many of us studied at school, calls 
the fallacy of objections. A great many objections have been 



11 



here brought against the Boston police, — a great many com- 
plaints have been urged against them, — without considering 
whether the same objections and complaints could not be urged 
against any system of police which the ingenuity of lawgivers 
could devise. The question is not whether there be not objec- 
tions to our system of police, but whether any change which this 
committee is likely to recommend will be an improvement. It 
has been stated that the thieves and criminal classes in Boston 
have too much influence in appointing the police. Now, gentle- 
men, I deny this ; I deny that there has been any time — and 
that, too, upon the evidence in this case — when what we call 
the lower classes, the criminal classes in the community, have 
had any direct influence over the Boston police. You must re- 
member, gentlemen, that this argument against the Boston 
police tells equally against all self-government in Boston. If 
Boston be so corrupt that it cannot be intrusted with the ap- 
pointment of its police, ought it to be intrusted with the appoint- 
ment of its mayor ? or with the election of its district attorney, 
who directs all the prosecutions in the criminal courts ? Ought 
it to be intrusted with the election of its sheriff, whose duty it is 
to keep the peace of the county ? — with the election of its board 
of aldermen and common council, which spend millions upon 
millions? If you say that the Corporation of Boston is not to 
be intrusted with the appointment of the city police, because the 
criminal classes have too much influence in the municipal elec- 
tions, you are making a strong argument against the whole mu- 
nicipal government of Boston, — against local government of any 
kind here. Should the time ever come — as may be the case now 
in the City of New York, but certainly is not true of any city 
in New England — when the criminal classes shall get the su- 
premacy in this city, then the time will have come for the legis- 
lature to apply a very strong remedy to the disease. I deny 
that that time has come yet, although we have a very large 
criminal population, and a large population of that nation 



12 

which, whatever may be its virtues, and it has many, cannot be 
said by its extremist flatterers to be easily rendered amenable 
to law and order. Notwithstanding this, you cannot yet say 
that Boston is so corrupt, that the criminal classes in it have 
such a preponderance of influence, that there is any evil at the 
City Hall which the citizens — the intelligent, educated citizens 
— are not capable of remedying themselves. 

When it is proposed, Mr. Chairman, to take the control of its 
police from the City of Boston, you propose to take away a very 
strong incentive to the educated classes to take an interest and 
interpose in local afi'airs ; and you encourage them, instead of 
going to the polls to correct any abuses which may exist in 
the corporate government, to come whining to the State House 
for relief. I remember a case in this very room when a legis- 
lative committee was investigating a subject, two years ago, in 
regard to which some people complained of the action of the 
city government. One of them, and a very wealthy man, — I 
think he pays one of the heaviest taxes in Boston, — remarked to 
me in conversation that he had not been inside of a ward-room 
for twenty years. Ought that man to be allowed to complain 
of the city government of Boston ? Would you, if he came 
here, listen to his complaint ? Would you not tell him to go to 
the primary meetings, to go to the polls and correct the evil 
which might exist there ? It is indeed deplorable that there is 
an inclination on the part of the wealthier and more cultivated 
classes of Boston not to meddle with municipal afi'airs; but it is 
not for the interest of the legislature, it is not for the interest 
of the Commonwealth, to encourage that disinclination. It is 
not for the interest of any part of the Commonwealth that these 
classes, when they find objectionable things in the municipal 
government, should be allowed to correct them here, but they 
should be told that the power to remedy such evils is in their 
own hands. That power is quite sufiicient at present to cor- 
rect all local abuses j but it will grow less and less, and the 



13 

evils of local self-government will grow larger and larger, if 
anj attempt is made to remedy them by reducing the power of 
local government, and thus lessening local responsibility. 

Another complaint made against our police is that there have 
been some bad appointments. Now, Mr. Chairman, I take it 
that, where there are four or five hundred persons to be 
appointed, there will be some bad appointments under any 
system of police. They occasionally take place under all govern- 
ments. Come here to the State House, — you know that there 
have been appointments made here that have not been entirely 
unobjectionable. You remember not many years ago that there 
was an inquiry into the conduct of a prominent State officer, 
and an investigation before the Legislature which made the 
expression, "the extension of liquors," for a time as familiar as 
household words. It is notorious, too, that lately a prominent 
politician, of whom it is speaking very mildly to say that his 
character rested under very grave suspicion, has been appointed 
Governor of one of the Territories; and you all doubtless 
recollect that a certain Pennsylvanian, who, as the news- 
papers gently say, suffered from Meptomania, was recently 
appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to an 
important consular position, when the fact of his disease was 
discovered just in time to cancel the appointment. Such things 
are at times unavoidable. And if it be true that certain im- 
proper appointments have been made by the Mayor of Boston, 
yet I think you will find it difficult to prove that, under such a 
system as it is proposed to have, — that is, the appointment of 
the police by Commissioners, or by the Governor directly, — 
the same kind of appointments will not occasionally be made. 
I think they will take place under any system. And I will go 
further, and say that, if the two instances which have been 
brought up here are the only ones which can be found, these 
bad appointments to the police force by the Mayor are very 
rare, and the Boston police is very pure indeed. One of these 



14 

instances was that of a man appointed on the police who was 
formerly convicted of burglary. Whether he was convicted, or 
not, has been in dispute ; but upon investigation I found out, 
as I told you the other day, that the trial took place five years 
ago, and that he was liberated on his own recognizance by a 
very well-known judge, who is not inclined to be tender to 
criminals, and that this mercy was shown him with the entire 
approval and at the recommendation of the District Attorney 
who prosecuted him. The man went to the war and served his 
country faithfully for five years, and the same District Attorney 
wrote a letter to the Mayor recommending his appointment to 
the police, saying he thought that five years' service and a good 
character meanwhile might be considered as expiation for any 
wrong done before. There was another case alluded to by an 
honorable Senator, who, I regret to observe, is not present (Mr. 
McLean), of a policeman who formerly had been guilty of 
passing counterfeit money. That person's name appeared in the 
report of this hearing in the newspapers, and the next day a 
young man — who did not appear to be more than twenty-one 
or twenty-two years of age, though he told me he was twenty- 
six — came to my office, and asked me how it was that he had 
been referred to. He then stated that what was charged 
against him took place in 1857, when he was but fourteen years 
of age, a poor, thoughtless bo}^, and he said it was rather hard 
that what he did then should be brought up against him now to 
deprive him of his place ; and I thought so, too. These are the 
only two instances of which vindictive industry has found evi- 
dence to bring here of bad appointments on the Boston Police, and 
I do not think that they can be censured very severely. 

The next objection made is that the Boston Police is a politi- 
cal organization, and is used for political purposes. Now, Mr. 
Chairman, I assert that the Boston police is not nearly so much 
of a political organization as it certainly would be under the 
control of the Commonwealth, I have had some connection with 



15 



nmnicipal affairs for several years, and have seen three different 
mayors in office since I have held ray present position. I saw 
in 1867 the Republican party go out of office and the Demo- 
cratic party come in, and I have not yet seen a single removal from 
office for political reasons. Why, sir, even the private secretary 
of the present mayor has served in the same capacity under his 
two predecessors J and Colonel Kurtz, the present Chief of 
Police, whose office is in the gift of the Mayor, has been retained 
by Mr. Shurtleff, although a political opponent. I know that 
for years one of the most prominent and important offices in the 
city has been held by a gentleman who, most of the time, has 
been opposed politically to the mayor, and the party controlling 
the city government. Now, gentlemen, I ask you, who are at 
the State House and who know what takes place here, to show 
me a parallel case to that. I ask you also — supposing that you 
report a bill establishing a Metropolitan Police, and that it 
passes both houses of the Legislature and is approved by the 
Governor, — whether you believe that any of the three, four, five 
or six commissioners provided for in the bill will be other 
than Republicans ? Do you believe that the Governor would 
dare to appoint a person not a Republican; and, if he did, do 
you believe the Council would confirm him? We know that 
since 1860 i\\Q personnel of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts 
has been entirely changed. It is admitted on all sides, that, if 
there are any appointments which ought not to be influenced by 
political considerations, they are those of the judges of the 
Courts. Yet there has not been a single appointment made of 
a member of the opposition. More than that, it is notorious 
that able gentlemen, who were prominent candidates, and 
who would have adorned the bench, have been passed by 
solely for political reasons. Men who were perfectly capa- 
ble of filling the place, who had served the Commonwealth 
faithfully in the lower Courts, and who would have added lustre 
to the Court, have seen younger and less prominent men pro- 



16 

moted over their heads to the Supreme bench, simply because 
they did not agree in politics with the Governor and Council. 
Now I ask you, gentlemen, if it is not certain, that, if a State 
police were established in Boston, it would be a political 
body, and that the whole influence of that police would be used 
to the utmost extent in behalf of the party which, for the time 
being, might be dominant here ; and, if the Republican party 
should be defeated, and the Democratic party come into office, is 
it not also certain that all the commissioners would at once be 
removed, and democrats be appointed in their stead ? No, sir, 
you cannot allege, with any show of plausibility, that the Boston 
police is used for political purposes, as a reason for establish- 
ing a State police. What is the evidence we have had here ? 
There have been before this committee as witnesses the pres- 
ent Chief of Police, and Mr. Nourse, one of his predecessors. 
You have heard the evidence of several gentlemen who have 
filled the office of mayor of the city, with whom the appointment 
of policemen rests, — Mr. Quincy, Mr. Eice, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. 
Norcross, — gentlemen whose word is above question, and they 
have all testified that they never appointed or removed a man 
for political reasons. 

Still another objection has been brought against the Boston 
police. It has been said that the Boston police has had a share 
in compounding felonies. Now the truth is that what consti- 
tutes the compounding of a felony is a matter which has been 
very much misunderstood. Mr. Foster stated what I believe 
you will admit to be the true legal view of the matter. The 
compounding of felony in Massachusetts (whatever may be the 
law elsewhere) consists not in getting back stolen property and 
not prosecuting the thief, but in recovering the property on con- 
dition and by means of an agreement that the tluef shall not be 
prosecuted. As far as the first is concerned, there have been a 
great many cases in which the Boston police have been employed 
to recover money and property where they have not been directed 



17 



to prosecute the criminals, and this may constitute some seem- 
ing foundation for the charge. The whole subject is one of very 
great difficulty. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, suppose you your- 
self, or any one else, — for I do not believe that you would 
judge yourself more indulgently than you would others, — sup- 
pose you or another person loses all the money he possesses 
in the world; he is robbed, as many people have been, by 
burglars, who break into his shop or his office, break open his 
safe, and carry away all he has in the world ; he goes to the 
Chief of Police, or to the Constable'of the Commonwealth, and 
states the case to him, and says, " I have lost everything." In 
a few days an officer comes to him and says, " We cannot find evi- 
dence enough to convict the criminal, but I think if we do not prose- 
cute we can recover most of the property you have lost." Would 
you blame the man if he acts accordingly, and takes the property 
without prosecuting? What is more, does the public blame 
him ? You cannot justly find fault with the police of Boston 
for not being in advance of public sentiment on this matter. 
You must consider the sentiment of the community before you 
censure them. If that approves of this practice, you cannot place 
the responsibility for its existence upon the police. It is noto- 
rious that banks consider forged paper the best to discount, 
because it is almost sure to be paid. Take the case of the 
robbery of the bank at Concord, the home of New England 
philosophy, — did the high-minded gentlemen who managed that 
bank hesitate to recover the property, and agree to let the 
robbers go ? That was very like a real case of compounding 
felony. To bring an accusation against the Boston police for 
doing what the whole community does, reminds me of the story 
told of a Frenchman who was appointed to an office in Russia 
(where the taking of bribes is an universal practice), and who for 
a long time refused to accept bribes. But, finding that he could 
not live on his salary, he at last yielded, and, while he was about 
it, he did tho thing handsomely, Having rather overstepped the 



18 



mark, and having been found out, — that was his offence, — he was 
summoned to answer for it before the proper tribunal. On being 
asked by the judge, " Why do you take bribes ? " his answer 
was original and conclusive : " I take, thou takest, he takes. 
We take, you take, they take." Why, sir, if there is any crime 
in seeking to recover back stolen property rather than to punish 
the criminal, the community is just as guilty as the police, and 
we all share the responsibility. Since our great national debt 
has been incurred, which (most unwisely, as I think) our gov- 
ernment has thought it best to put in the shape of negotiable 
bonds, there has been an inducement for burglary and robbery 
such as the world has never before seen ; and I have never read 
or heard of any robberies — and I have some knowledge of 
the annals of crime, from the State Trials down to the Newgate 
Calendar — so daring, so well planned, arid executed with such 
consummate skill, as some of those we have known in this coun- 
try of late years. Think of that robbery in New York, when 
Mr. Lord lost $1,700,000 in United States bonds, and could not 
tell even the exact day when the bonds were taken, — did not 
know of the robbery until some days afterwards ! I know noth- 
ing in criminal history equal to that. Perhaps, as everything in 
our country is on a colossal scale, — as we have the largest 
lakes, the greatest rivers, and the longest railways in the world, 
and, a few years ago, had the largest armies, — so it is but nat- 
ural that we should have gigantic robberies, greater than the 
world has ever seen before. And the public does not blame an 
individual who, having suffered from one of these robberies, 
seeks rather to save his property than to punish the offender. 
But, if we desire the enactment of laws which will provide an 
effectual remedy for this grievous evil, we must go deeper than 
any mere change in the control of the police from the munici- 
pal to the State government. Jeremy Bentham, a most profound 
thinker on all subjects connected with political science, and 
whose su2'o:estions have been invaluable to reformers and legis- 



19 



lators, recommended a remedy for this, whicli I commend to the 
attention of our legislature ; for I think a very strong argument 
can be made in favor of it. I read from the first volume of his 
collected Works, pages 578 and 579. Hesajs : — 

"The great problem in penal legislation is : 1. To reduce as much as 

possible all the evil of oflfences to that which a pecuniary compensation will 

cure ; 2. To throw the expense of this cure upon the authors of the evil, 

and, in their default, npon the public. "What may be done in this respect 

goes far beyond what is imagined at the first glance. 

********** 

" Everything which can be repaired is nothing. Everything which may 
be compensated by a pecuniary forfeiture is almost as non-existent as if 
it had never existed ; for, if the injured individual always receive an equiv- 
alent compensation, the alarm caused by the crime ceases entirely, or is 
reduced to its lowest term. 

" The desirable object is that the funds for compensation on account of 
crimes should be drawn from the mass of delinquents themselves, — either 
from the goods they have acquired, or from labor imposed on them. If 
this were the case, security would be the inseparable companion of inno- 
cence, and sorrow and anguish would only be the portion of the disturbers 
of the social order. Such is the point of perfection which should be aimed 
at, though there may be no hope of attaining it but by degrees, and by 
continued efforts. The goal is pointed out : the happiness of reaching it 
will be the reward of an enlightened and persevering administration. 

" During the insufficiency of this source, it is proper to draw compensa- 
tion either from the public treasure or private insurances. 

" The imperfection of our laws is very evident under this point of view. 
Has a crime been committed ? those who have suffered by it, either in their 
person or their fortune, are abandoned to their evil condition. The society 
which they have contributed to maintain, and which ought to protect 
them, owes them, however, an indemnity when its protection has not 
been effectual." 

Beatham here proposes that, after the conviction of a criminal, 
the public should reimburse the sufferers from his crime ; and I 
think it is a fit subject for consideration, whether, in order 
effectually to prevent the settlement of these robberies, and to 
bring home punishment to the perpetrators, it would not be a 
wise and economical measure to provide that, after a criminal 
has been convicted, the individual who has suffered injury shall 



20 



have an inquiry by jury of his damages, and likewise of the ques- 
tion whether the petitioner's own negligence contributed to the 
loss. If the jury decide the latter question in the negative, 
then let the sufferer be compensated out of the criminal's labor, 
or by some other means. I think a very strong argument can be 
made in favor of such legislation. I do not expect to see it just 
yet, but I shall not wonder if, before five and twenty years have 
passed, it be the law, both in England and in this country. 
Yery many of Bentham's propositions, which were ridiculed 
while he lived, are now universally accepted and adopted as just 
and expedient, and I incline to think that this one may have a 
similar destiny. 

But another charge is brought against the Boston police. It 
is said that the policemen, and particularly the detective force, 
take rewards. Well, gentlemen, so do the officers of the State 
Constabulary ; so do police officers all over the country. It is 
not illegal. I do not say that it is wise ; perhaps it is unwise 
to permit it, but every police force does it. It has been done 
in broad daylight without concealment, and until lately without 
objection. If you think it best to enact a law, applying to the 
6oston police and to all the other police forces in the State, for- 
bidding this, do so; but I do not think the mere fact that 
rewards are taken by our police, in common with all others, an 
argument for taking the control of the police out of our hands. 

It is said, too, that metropolitan police forces have been 
established in other cities, where they have worked well. Much 
stress has been laid upon this fact. Well, even admitting this 
statement to be true, it does not follow that we need one in Bos- 
ton. One instance alleged is that of the London police. In 
1829,1 believe, a metropolitan police was established in Lon- 
don. Now, Mr. Chairman, London is the name applied by law 
and general usage to the huge metropolis of Great Britain. It 
includes a population of over 3,000,000; but the corporate 
limits of the City of London are smaller than those of Bos- 



21 



ton, and they include less than 100,000 inhabitants. In the 
vast suburbs outside of the city limits, including Westminster, the 
seat of government, reside the remainder of the population which 
constitutes the metropolis. This great district is without a central 
corporate government, each city, borough and parish having 
its own of&cers. It therefore became necessary that a police 
force should be provided for these suburbs, and the metropolitan 
police was established; the City of London retaining its own 
police. It is evident that it may be expedient to establish a 
police force for a population of 3,000,000 of people thus 
situated, when it is entirely unnecessary to do so for 250,000 
governed by one corporation. I suppose that no one here thinks 
that, if it is necessary, for instance, to establish a State police 
force in the city of Boston, that it will also be necessary to es- 
tablish one in New Bedford or Worcester j and, for a similar 
reason, a distinction should be made between two cases so un- 
like as London and Boston. Besides, I was in London during 
the last year, and I heard a good deal said about their police ; 
and the comments made upon its members, from Sir Richard 
Mayne, the Commissioner of Police, downwards, including the 
members of the detective force, were anything but complimentary. 
I do not think that at that time the residents of London were 
by any means satisfied with the police. 

Then we come to New York, and it is said the metro- 
politan police system has succeeded there. Now, whatever 
criticisms may be made upon Boston and its police, all will 
allow that we are not yet so bad as New York ; nor that any 
such state of things exists here as that which compelled the 
legislature of the State to interfere with its corporate privileges. 
Why, sir, a few years ago the commissioners of the metro- 
politan police in New York began their annual report with 
the statement, that there was no city in the civilized world, not 
in a state of actual siege, in which life and property were so 
insecure as they were in the City of New York. You heard 



22 



what Mr. Lincoln related of his conversation with General Nye, 
formerlj one of the commissioners of police there, and now 
a Senator from Nevada, in which that gentleman said : 
"Don't try this system in Boston until you are compelled 
to." You heard also what was the complaint of the mayor of 
Brooklyn, whose city is included in the New York police district, 
— that he did not have sufficient control over the police, and 
found it impossible to make them efficient for municipal pur- 
poses. 

In this connection, I beg leave to read an extract from the 
Boston Traveller. Whatever I may think of the authority of the 
Traveller in other respects, anything which that newspaper says 
against a metropolitan police I admit is entitled to high 
consideration. What I now read is a telegram which appeared 
in its columns: — 

New York, Peb. 23. — Complaints against our police continue. The 
friends of the metropolitan system state that there are not enough officers 
on duty to grapple with the large number of criminals concentrated in 
this and the neighboring city of Brooklyn, and urge that from five 
hundred to a thousand men should be added to the force. 

Others insist that the force is large enough, but that the majority of the 
officers are totally unfit to discharge the duties assigned to them, and call 
for a most thorough overhauling of police matters, and especially in the 
detectives' office. 

The detectives seem to be perfectly indifierent, and robbers and assassins 
are becoming much bolder, evidently in the belief that, if detected in their 
nefarious operations, they would easily "fix" the afiair with the officials. 
There are those who do not hesitate to say that there has been a lack of 
interest on the part of the police to bring the murderer of Mr. Rogers to 
trial, and others who intimate that money is being freely used to prevent 
his arrest. 

These charges of corruption have become so common that but little 
interest is now taken in them. A thorough investigation of police depart- 
ment aflfairs would be rich in developments of an astounding character, if 
one-fiftieth part of the stories in circulation are true. 

Last night there was another " spurt," and a number of the lower class 
of houses of ill-fame (the keepers of which were probably too poor to "put 
out " any money to prevent such a visitation) were raided upon [sic'] by 
the police, and several arrests made. 



23 



There is the New York police for you. While it would be 
monstrous to charge all tho blame of this sad picture upon the 
metropolitan police system, I do believe that that has aggra- 
vated the evil. I am willing to admit that such a system in 
New York is a necessity, but what of that ? It does not follow 
that it is called for here. I am not certain that the best gov- 
ernment for New York would not be martial law. The condi- 
tion of that city is now the gravest problem before the American 
people, — more alarming than any they have ever had, with the 
exception of slavery. Besides, the New York police district 
contains a population of a million and a half, and a State police 
may be desirable in a metropolis of that size, while entirely 
unnecessary in Boston. New York, therefore, is in no way a 
parallel case. Then the case of Baltimore has been cited here. 
Well, Baltimore was formerly a pretty bad place. Even with a 
metropolitan police it was bad enough; and during the war 
their police commissioners nearly manoeuvred the city, and with 
it the State of Maryland, out of the Union, — a result which at 
one time would have insured the success of the rebellion. That 
was the working of the metropolitan police system in Baltimore, 
— as the organized agent of the secessionists. This boasted 
remedy, you see, is not a panacea for all evils. 

Another argument against our present police is based on 
a theory which goes a good deal deeper than any of these. 
It is said that the power that makes the laws ought to 
appoint the officers who execute the laws. Now, Mr. Chair- 
man, with all due deference to the gentlemen who have 
so earnestly advanced this proposition, I must say that it 
seems to me to be one of those jingling aphorisms that 
tickle the ears of unthinking people, who imagine that ring- 
ing innumerable changes upon them constitutes argument; 
while in fact, even when true in the abstract, they require in 
their practical application so many qualifications and lim- 
itations, and open the door to so many fallacies, that, like all 



24 



general principles, tlie greater part of mankind had better leave 
them alone. What is meant by this proposition ? If it means 
that the power that makes the laws must provide for their exe- 
cution, does anybody deny it? Of course it must be so, else 
the laws will become a dead letter. But when the legislature 
enacts a law, and provides that it shall be executed by the 
executive and police officers elected or appointed by the local 
authorities, it has satisfied this grand truth. If, however, you go 
further, and mean that the power that makes the laws must actually 
appoint the ministers who carry them out, the proposition is not 
only fallacious, but false. See what it would lead to. To carry 
out such a doctrine to its natural and logical results, you cannot 
stop with policemen, but all mayors, selectmen, sheriffs, constables, 
district attorneys and similar officers, must be appointed by the 
central government. So should be the assessors and collectors 
of taxes, and all schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, for they are 
engaged in enforcing State laws. But, conceding that all ex- 
ecutive officers ought to be appointed by the State, what sort 
of reform do you propose ? Why, gentlemen, if that general 
principle be true, then the proposition now before you 
is the most puny, infinitesimal, homoeopathic remedy that can 
well be conceived of. You go back to the legislature 
and say, " We have discovered a great general principle : 
the power that makes the laws ought to appoint the officers 
that enforce the laws," and you accompany this glorious discov- 
ery with a bill providing that the police officers of Boston shall 
be appointed by commissioners under the control of the Com- 
monwealth. You pass by the sheriff, who is responsible for the 
peace of the county ,* the district attorney, who controls abso- 
lutely all prosecutions not capital, and can nol. pros, any indict- 
ment brought against a criminal ; and the mayor of every city. 
You still allow the selectmen to be chosen by the inhabitants of 
the towns, and only propose, in order to apply your newly discov- 



25 



ered principle to our government, that the police of Boston 
shall be under the control of the Governor. 

Now, gentlemen, if you seriously believe in this proposi- 
tion, be bold and courageous, and do not skulk under cover 
of it, in order to carry something else. Go to the legis- 
lature, and tell them that you have no confidence in democratic 
institutions and local self-government; that you cannot intrust 
the execution of the laws to the people of the several 
counties and municipalities,* declare that our institutions for 
two centuries have been founded on false principles ; propose 
the repeal of the pernicious amendments to the constitution — 
for most pernicious they were — whereby the district attorneys 
and sheriffs are made elective, and provide that they and the 
mayors of Boston and the other cities of the Commonwealth, 
and the selectmen of the several towns, shall be appointed by 
the Governor ; and then, having consistently applied your general 
principle, — see how many of you will find your way back to 
these halls of legislation next winter ! No, gentlemen ; there is no 
such principle. In the most perfect bureaucracy the world has 
ever seen, the administrative genius of a Nicholas or of a Na- 
poleon or of a Bismarck would be found unequal to the task of 
carrying out such a system. It is contrary to the genius of not 
only our institutions, but of the institutions of government 
which prevail wherever the English language is spoken. The 
legislature with us makes the laws ; and then we consider that the 
highest wisdom points in most cases to the people as the best 
executive officers to see that they are enforced. 

I now come, Mr. Chairman, to the objections which exist to 
the appointment of a local police by the State government; and, 
in the first place, I shall again refer to the facts about the police 
in New York, to which I alluded a moment ago. There are 
local and municipal duties attaching to the police that cannot be 
so well and efficiently discharged by a State force as by a local 
one. So important are these, that, if the legislature should 
4 



26 



establish a State police in Boston, I think that the Boston police 
force would be continued very much as it is now, unless the 
legislature actually passed a law forbidding the corporation of 
Boston having any police force at all ; in which case Boston 
of course would submit, as she will, to any constitutional law which 
the legislature enacts. If, therefore, there should be two police 
forces in this city, one to carry out the State laws, and another 
to carry out the by-laws and ordinances of the municipal corpo- 
ration, one decided objection to such a state of things would be 
that two police forces are entirely unnecessary ; for, while I con- 
tend that a State police cannot so well perform the local and 
municipal duties of a police, and cannot so well preserve a 
guardianship over the city as a local police can, at the same time 
I do believe that, as a general thing, the city police can enforce 
the State laws as well as a police force established for that pur- 
pose alone. I have in my hands the report of the Chief of 
Police of Boston for the quarter ending March 31, 1869, in 
which he gives a detailed account of the condition of the city 
during those three months as regards all matters under his su- 
pervision. The number of arrests for all kinds and degrees of 
crime were 4,958. Many of these cases were minor offences, 
such as assaults, cruelty to animals, common railers and brawl- 
ers, common beggars, drunkenness (which alone amounted to 
2,125), disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, fast driving, 
obstructing street railways, refusing to pay railroad fare, 
suspicious persons, stubborn children, truants, violations of city 
ordinances, and vagabonds, — offences which are matters of 
local rather than generalimportance. But, independently of 
these, under the head of " Miscellaneous," the report states the 
various other duties performed by our police officers, and the 
number of cases of each, a few of which, with your permission, 
I will read: — 

Accidents . . 114 

Buildings found open and secured .... 523 



27 



Defective lamps 

Disturbances suppressed 

Foundlings provided for 

Fire alarms given . 

Fires extinguished without alarm 

Injured persons provided for . 

Intoxicated persons helped home 

Lost children .... 

Rescued from drowning . 

Streets and sidewalks reported out of repair 

Street obstructions removed . 

Stray teams put up . 

Water running to waste . 



4473 

1744 

2 

58 

33 

42 

334 

109 

9 

1991 

7411 

37 

55 



Now, I contend that the Boston police is much better suited 
to perform all these duties than any police that can be appointed 
by the State. They are matters of almost purely local interest, 
and local duty. They are matters of which, if improperly or 
negligently done, the citizens of Boston directly and almost 
exclusively feel the consequent injury. Of course the whole 
Commonwealth has some interest in their performance, but the 
consequence to the people not residing in Boston, is almost 
imperceptible. For attention to all these matters, the City of 
Boston will have to provide a force of some kind. They will not 
be attended to by a State police as effectually as by the local 
police, or as the inhabitants will demand ; and what will sub- 
stantially be two police forces will therefore be employed to do 
the work which one force now does, and does well. 

Consider the expense of this new force : if two police forces 
are to be supported in Boston, I think it is a matter of grave 
doubt whether the whole Commonwealth will not have to con- 
tribute to the support of one of them, and not Boston alone. 
But suppose it is otherwise. Boston, I admit, is a very wealthy 
city. The valuation of property last year was $444,000,000 j 
but nearly if not quite one-third of the income derived from 
that immense sum was paid in the shape of direct taxation to 
the national, state and municipal governments. 



28 

Mr. Sennott. What proportion of the State taxes does Bos- 
ton pay ? 

Mr. Hill. About one-third. In addition to this direct taxa- 
tion, we have to pay, in common with all, indirect taxes, from the 
heaviest excise duties and the heaviest customs' duties probably 
that the world has ever seen ; and both the Commonwealth and 
the corporation of Boston now have agents in London nego- 
tiating loans. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, is this a time 
to impose unnecessary burdens upon us ? 

I will allude once more, in another view, to the argument 
which I mentioned before, arising from the political influence of 
a State police force. At present, the political influence of a 
force appointed by the Governor would be of very little moment, 
for there is no balance of parties in the Commonwealth. The 
Republican party is so largely in the majority in the State that 
its influence one way or the other would be imperceptible. But 
this may not always be the case. The time will come when the 
questions now at issue, and upon which the Republican party has 
maintained its ascendancy, will be settled, and new questions 
will arise upon which the people of the State may be nearly 
equally divided. The time may come when again one vote will 
turn the election for Governor, as in 1840. With such a state 
of parties, consider the political power of such a police force as 
it is proposed to create. Think what a handle it will give the 
Governor by which to influence elections ! Suppose there be a 
state police, extending its ramifications to all parts of the Com- 
monwealth ; or suppose it be only a Boston police, controlled by 
the Governor ; or a metropolitan police, extending in its juris- 
diction over one half of the people of the Commonwealth (for I 
believe one half of the people in the State live within twenty 
miles of the State-house), — I think that the control of any such 
great political engine is rather a dangerous power to put into 
the hands of one man ; and, if the question were canvassed 
before the people, they would never consent to give the Gover- 



29 



nor, no matter how much they might respect him, such a power 
as that. 

But there are other objections still to this force. Now the 
mayor is responsible for the peace of the city. If it be neces- 
sary to call out the military, it is under his control. And shall 
the mayor have the control of the military force, and not have 
the control of the police force too ? Besides, there are times 
when it is necessary to have the " one-man power," with all its 
great advantages, in the police. To-day the appointments are 
made by the mayor ; and most of the gentlemen who have testified 
against the proposed measure have told you that, if the 
aldermen were relieved of all responsibility, and the mayor 
alone made responsible for the police, it would be a most bene- 
ficial change. Do you not believe that, with a commission com- 
posed of three, five or six persons, there might be clashing of 
authority, altercations and divisions of opinion, which in a great 
crisis might be productive of the most dangerous consequences ? 

Again : a State police confined to the cities of the Common- 
wealth, or to certain cities and towns in the neighborhood of 
Boston, is of doubtful constitutionality, to say the least. I will 
not, as I before promised, discuss this question now ; but I will 
suggest one or two of the constitutional difiQculties before you. 
For instance, how are you going to raise the money to support 
this force ? Who is going to incur the expenses, and assess the 
taxes to meet them ? What right has the legislature to dele- 
gate the power of taxation to these commissioners ? But even 
if you get over this difficulty, and the legislature vote the 
appropriation for it, who is to pay for it ? I do not think the 
people of the whole Commonwealth will care about paying for 
the support of a police force in the neighborhood of Boston 
alone. I do not see why the people of Lenox and Ashfield should 
be taxed for that. But, if you make it a special tax on Boston, 
you come in contact with the provision of the constitution con- 
fining the power of the legislature to the imposition of " propor- 



30 



tional and reasonable assessments, rates and taxes upon all the 
inhabitants of, and persons resident, and estates lying within, 
the Commonwealth." How, in the face of this limitation on its 
power, can the legislature impose a tax on the inhabitants of 
Boston alone ? And the honorable Chairman knows, and can 
inform the committee, that the Supreme Court attaches great 
importance to this provision of the constitution, and has repeat- 
edly declared taxes unconstitutional because they were not pro- 
portional, and did not fall on all the inhabitants alike. 

I will now examine for a few moments the evidence that has 
been pror'uced before the committee on this subject. I have 
before me a letter of the late Mr. Quincy, who was tlie 
second mayor of Boston, and held the office during the years 
1823-8, written at the time this question was last before the 
legislature in 1863, when that venerable gentleman, whom we 
all recollect, still survived at an extreme age, but with his mind 
perfectly clear ; and to the last he took a deep interest in his 
native city, which he had seen grow from a town of twenty 
thousand people to contain a population of nearly a quarter of 
a million. He was very instrumental in procuring the incorpo- 
ration of the city, and he was always considered here and every- 
where the highest authority on all matters concerning it. In 
this letter addressed to the mayor of Boston he said : 

" Without pretending at my period of life to influence the decision of my 
fellow-citizens on any subject of their municipal concerns, yet, at the re- 
quest of the Mayor of Boston, I readUy state that I have yet seen nothing 
in the conduct of the city government which justifies the State in taking 
out of the usual course the guardianship of the city of Boston, and its 
concerns.'* 

Besides this, you have had before you, Mr. Chairman, that 
gentleman's son, Mr. Quincy the younger, mayor in 1845-8, 
and Mr. Rice, Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Norcross, who likewise have 
filled that honorable office. You have had before you Mr. 
Upton, a gentleman of much influence in Boston and the Com- 



31 



monwealth, arid who is well acquainted with the working of 
municipal government in both town and city ; and Mr. Paine, who 
has the largest practice in the trial of causes, both in the civil and 
criminal courts, of any member of our bar, and whose authority 
is very high indeed. You have heard the testimony of Mr. 
Tyler, Mr. Messenger, and Mr. Amory, who were all aldermen 
of Boston for many years. They all strongly oppose this 
change. You remember what Mr. Quincy, Mr. Rice and Mr. 
Norcross said so emphatically, — that they would not like to be 
mayors of Boston, and not have the control of the police. You 
have heard, too, the strong testimony of Mr. Charles B. Hall, 
who, as secretary of the Association of Banks for the Suppres- 
sion of Counterfeiting, has peculiar means of knowledge, to the 
efficiency of our present police. 

Mr. Norcross is a man whom we all respect; and, in regard to 
municipal affairs, his opinion carries more influence to-day in 
Boston and the Commonwealth than that of any one else. 
Nothing could have been stronger, or, in my opinion, more 
conclusive, than his opinion, founded, as it was, upon great expe- 
rience in municipal government, and given by a man who was not 
to be turned away from his better judgment by the fact that he 
had been defeated when a candidate for re-election to the 
mayoralty. 

Well, there were some gentlemen here as witnesses on the 
other side : most or all of them are acquaintances and friends of 
mine, and all men for whom I feel the highest respect and re- 
gard, and therefore I want to speak of them with the utmost 
fairness and courtesy, and I do not think that any of them will 
be displeased when I say that I do not consider their testimony 
on this subject as at all comparable in value with the testimony 
of Mr. Norcross, and the other gentlemen who agreed with 
him. Mr. Nash and Mr. Slack are gentlemen who do not fear 
being in a minority. Whatever they may hope will be the case 
in the future, they will admit that to-day. on many public ques- 



82 



tions, they differ in opinion from the great bulk of the people of 
Massachusetts; and I think this is one of them. Of Mr. 
Gaffield I wish also to speak with kindness, for I am under 
many obligations to him ; but Mr. Gaffield is mixed up with 
this question in a very peculiar way, and in a way which can- 
not but influence his judgment. You know that he brought 
certain charges against the police, which were investigated 
at a secret meeting of the board of aldermen, presided over 
by the mayor, and at which the City Solicitor was present 
as assessor ; and he was the only alderman who voted against 
a very sweeping and strong resolution of exoneration intro- 
duced by Mr. Slack. He himself likened the case to that 
of the eleven obstinate jurors. Did you not think it pos- 
sible, when that gentleman was giving his testimony, that 
he might be warped by the prejudices he has against the 
present Chief of Police ? I think they did bias him, and I can- 
not therefore consider his opinion of the same value as that 
of other gentlemen, equally well versed in municipal affairs, who 
differ from him. Then we heard the testimony of Mr. Fitch' 
another very respectable man, and former alderman ; but I cannot 
think that he has really paid much attention to the subject, for 
he proposes that the whole detective police duties be left 
to private enterprise, — a system which would establish Jonathan 
Wilds, under the protection of the law, all over the Common- 
wealth. Any one, no matter how intelligent he may be, who has 
got no further in the subject of police matters than that, is 
hardly to be considered an expert. 

It has been also stated as an argument against us that there 
have been mayors of Boston who ought not to have been 
elected to the position. I am not going to say much in reply to 
this, but shall merely remark that, even if this has been so, I 
think it is not disrespectful in me to retort that there have been 
gentlemen in the executive chair at the State House who ought 
not to have been there. I will go further, and say that 



33 



since 1822, — the year that this city was incorporated, — the 
gentlemen who have been mayors of Boston will compare fa- 
vorably in point of integrity, ability, culture, and social stand- 
ing, with any gentlemen who have held the office of Governor. 
Mr. Phillips, Mr. Quincy, Mr. Otis, Mr. Lyman, '^Mr. Eliot, Mr. 
Brimmer, and other persons still living whom I will not name, 
all mayors of Boston, rank as high as any of their contempora- 
ries in the State, or in New England. Of course there have 
been mayors of Boston who were elected to the office by 
accident, or by a peculiar conjuncture of circumstances, and 
who perhaps ought never to have occupied the place. And so I 
might say there have been governors of the Commonwealth 
elected in a similar way. I think there is quite as much chance 
or certainty of our having a good mayor of Boston as of our 
having a good governor of the State j and I say this with all 
respect to Ilis Excellency and his predecessors. 

There is one other objection which has been made to the 
retention of the Boston police, and that is the facts respecting the 
riots in 1860 and 1861. Now, nobody is more firmly opposed 
to anything like mobs and riots than I am. I believe that all 
disturbances of the kind ought to be treated with almost merci- 
less severity ; and although I dislike to be so egotistical, yet, in 
order to show my sincerity, I will state a personal circumstance 
regarding the riot of 1861, when the mayor of Boston showed 
himself, as I thought, hardly equal to the occasion, and allowed 
a citizen to be turned out of a hall by a mob. Although I had 
no sympathy with the sentiments of the speaker, yet I was 
so indignant, my blood was so stirred up within me at the 
occurrence, that I wrote to my friend, Mr, Smalley, then a 
member of this bar, and now the London correspondent of the 
New York Tribune, volunteering, if I remember rightly, my 
services to assist him in procuring the passage thro uh the 
legislature of a bill establishing a State police in Boston. 
That was my feeling at the time, and the feeling of many other 

5 



34 



persons. I think, however, that the Statute of Limitations ought 
to run against the riot of 1861, when used as an argument to 
prove the inefficency of the Boston police now. It was the 
subject of legislative investigation at the time, and your prede- 
cessors almost contemptuously rejected a bill establishing a 
State police. But, be that as it may, we can allow that there 
were many palliating circumstances which in part excuse those 
times. They were times of intense excitement ; we were then 
in the midst of a civil war, for, alth ough fighting had not begun, 
the authority of the government was denied in a large portion 
of the country ; the people were impulsive, and ready to punish 
anything that looked like resistance to the government, or that 
seemed likely to increase the difficulties of reunion. If I sup- 
posed that the spirit which prevailed at that time was perma- 
nent ; if I supposed that that was a fair example of the ideas 
which prevail in Boston in regard to free speech, — I should be 
in favor of a State police, and military government too, if neces- 
sary. But I do not believe anything of the kind. We know 
that all through the war many illegal and unjustifiable acts were 
done. There was the riot at Marblehead, where a man, who was 
said to have spoken approvingly of President Lincoln's assassi- 
nation the day after it took place, was tarred and feathered by a 
mob of really respectable men, led away by excitement to inflict 
this unlawful injury. No one has ever advocated the establish- 
ment of a State police in the County of Essex in consequence of 
that act. These were exceptional acts, done when everything 
relating to politics was in an abnormal condition ; and they do 
not constitute a valid argument for radical and permanent 
change in the form or the policy of the government. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, I come to another argument which 
has been urged in favor of a State police. Mr. Cushing, who, 
I believe, was formerly Secretary of the State Temperance Alli- 
ance, a gentleman of great candor and evident good sense, stated 
here that he thought the Boston police generally performed its 



35 



duties very well ; that there might be some errors of judgment 
in its management, and some defects in the system ; but he was 
well satisfied with it, except in regard to the laws against the 
sale of intoxicating liquors, and against houses of ill-fame, and 
gambling houses. And he further said that those laws were not 
only not enforced in Boston, but they were not enforced in any 
city of the Commonwealth. He also said (and I consider him 
very high authority), that, during the thirty years he had resided 
in Massachusetts, those laws had never been enforced in cities. 
It struck me as rather singular that it had never occurred to a 
man of Mr. Cushing's excellent sense that the fault in regard 
to these laws might be with the statutes themselves, and not with 
the police. One subject he spoke of involves a social problem 
so difficult that I can say, as I once heard a distinguished advo- 
cate say : When I contemplate it, it shakes my confidence in the 
civilization under which we live, and makes me think there must 
be something in it radically wrong. At this time I will only 
say this of it, — that for three hundred years we have been trying, 
in England and America, to put down the evil by penal legisla- 
tion, and to-day it is as rampant as ever. 

But the real foundation of this movement in favor of a State 
police in Boston is the alleged neglect to enforce the so-called 
prohibitory law by the Boston police. It is the friends of that 
law who petition for it ; the learned counsel,^ who is to follow 
me, is retained by one of the great temperance societies. That 
it does not enforce the laws against intoxicating liquors is the 
gist of the indictment presented against the Boston police j all 
else is mere matter of aggravation. 

In what I am going to say on this subject, sir, I wish to speak 
with the utmost respect of the temperance party and of temper- 
ance men. When I consider the misery and the wretchedness 
and the crime that result from the use of intoxicating liquors, I 
cannot wonder that earnest people are sometimes carried a little 

* Mr, Sennott. 



86 



further than their unbiassed judgments would lead them in their 
attempts to suppress the sale of them ; and pay too little atten. 
tion to the fundamental principles of government, and to the 
rights of the subject. They are trying to remedy by penal laws 
what is in my opinion, to a great extent, outside of the proper 
bounds of political and within those of moral science, and what 
will never be remedied until the millennium. But, in speaking 
of this subject in connection with that of the proposed State 
police, as I am obliged to, I wish to say nothing disrespectful of 
these men or of their cause. 

It is said, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that in Boston the 
prohibitory law has never been enforced. But the truth is, that 
the difference between Boston and the other cities of the Com- 
monwealth in this respect is, and has always been, a matter of 
degree merely. Boston is ten times as large as any of the other 
cities. You must remember that, when you have one city ten 
times as large as another, it is a good deal more than ten times 
as difficult to govern the large place as to govern the smaller 
one. You have more than ten times the inequality of wealth 
and ten times the poverty and ten times the number of criminals. 
The great size of Boston makes it infinitely more difficult to en- 
force laws like the prohibitory law here than it is in Worcester or 
Lowell. I admit all this ; but at the same time, while this is 
true, Boston was not alone among the cities of the Common- 
wealth in disregarding the prohibitory law. I base my state- 
ment upon the evidence before the License Committee of the legis- 
lature in 1867, which I have read carefully, and which shows that, 
until the State Constabulary was established, the prohibitory law 
in every large place in the State was in effect a dead letter; 
and if, since the State Constabulary has in par t enforced the 
law, there has been a change in Boston, the change is not more 
marked here than in many other places. 

It is said that the local public opinion in Boston is against 
the prohibitory law, and this is an argument in favor of a State 
police which has been a good deal harped upon. Well, I ad- 



a7 



mit it. But what is that public opinion ? That public opinion 
which is complained of is the opinion, not of the wine mer- 
chants; not of the innkeeperS; nor of those who keep bar-rooms, 
nor that of the liquor interest generally. You need not be 
afraid of such a public opinion as that. The public opinion 
against the prohibitory law in Boston is thi3 public opinion of 
men who, to say the least, are just as intelligent, just as sincere , 
just as high-minded, just as competent to judge of the question, 
as any class of people in the State, or as any class in the land. 
Tliere is a feeling in Boston against the prohibitory law that is 
widespread and deep-seated, and that, I think, is growing; and 
therefore I admit, Mr. Chairman, that it will be difficult to enforce 
the law in this city while that opinion lasts. When you try 
to enforce any law whatever against an educated and matured 
public opinion like that, you have undertaken a hopeless task. 
Why, sir, without public opinion on your side, it is almost im- 
possible to enforce any law ; while, with public opinion in favor 
of them, a great many laws, rules, and regulations are readily 
enforced, without any sanction derived from legislative enact- 
ment, or any penalty except the disgrace attaching to those 
who disregard them. There are many usages established 
by society — some entirely capricious — that are enforced 
rigidly and despotically. There are a great many people in 
Boston — and I trust I am not personal when I say there are 
some people in this room — who would break many human laws 
and I fear [many divine laws too, rather than go to a dinner 
party in a brown hoUand sack-coat, or in a roundabout jacket, 
It is public opinion, and no technical law, which — often in aca 
pricious manner — obliges us to conform to the customs of society 
I do not complain of this. Our duty to obey the command and 
caprice of fashion and etiquette rests on fundamental principles 
of social obligation, and we ought to conform to them when 
they are not too absurd. But how much more powerful 
is an honest public opinion in regard to an important law? 



38 

With a strong public opinion in its favor, hardly any penalty is 
required to enforce it among those upon whom public opinion at 
all operates. With a public opinion, even a local public opin- 
ion, strongly against a law, its sanctions and penalties lose 
almost all their terrors, and in a free country its enforcement is 
impracticable. " E is easy," said Macaulay in Parliament, " to 
say, * Be bold ,* be firm ; defy intimidation j let the law have 
its course ; the law is strong enough to put down the seditious.' 
Sir, we have heard all this blustering before ; and we know in 
what it ended. It is the blustering of little men, whose lot has 
fallen on a great crisis. Xerxes scourging the winds, Canute 
commanding the waves to recede from his footstool, were but 
types of those who apply the maxims of the Quarter Sessions 
to the great convulsions of society. The law has no eyes ; the 
law has no hands ; the law is nothing, nothing but a piece of 
paper printed by the king's printer, with the king's arms at the 
top, till public opinion breathes the breath of life into the dead 
letter." And so Mr. Disraeli once spoke of the public opinion 
" whose mild and irresistible influence can control even the high 
decrees of Parliament, and without whose support the most 
august and ancient institutions are but ' the baseless fabric of a 
vision.' " We have once seen in Boston an instance of attempt- 
ing to enforce a law against a " local public opinion." Any of 
the gentlemen of this committee who were in Boston in 1854, at 
the time when the fugitive Burns was taken back to slavery, will, 
I venture to say, never forget that scene. We then saw the 
streets lined with infantry, and artillery pointed up the principal 
thoroughfares. We saw a poor fugitive, surrounded by soldiers, 
carried down State Street to be taken back to bondage. We 
saw the court-house guarded: and we saw all these things 
done to enforce against public opinion a law which the Supreme 
Courts of the United States and of Massachusetts had unani- 
mously decided to be constitutional. Then " order reigned in 
Warsaw"; then Mr. Dana, the leading counsel for the slave, 



39 

might well turn to the United States District Attorney, and, with 
bitter irony, congratulate him on the peace of Boston. That 
was a triumph of the majesty of the law of which we may well be 
proud ; but, if it had been many times repeated, how long should 
we have had any laws left to enforce ? 

You complain that the public opinion of Boston has a dele- 
terious influence upon the police and magistracy who reside in 
the midst of it; and you propose to have commissioners of 
police appointed by the Governor, and, as Bostonians cannot be 
trusted, to bring your policemen, for aught I know, from Han- 
cock, Great Barrington, Tisbury, Nantucket, — from the re- 
motest parts of the State, where they have not been corrupted 
by Boston opinions. But, gentlemen, proximity operates both 
ways, and how long would it be before the feelings and sym- 
pathies of those around them would begin to influence these 
men, too ? Of course there would be a show of putting down 
the sale of intoxicating liquors at first; a great many pros- 
ecutions would be begun ; the dockets of the crimiual courts 
would be again so crowded that all idea of really trying 
the cases would be impracticable; the police commissioners 
would make very plausible reports : but in time the surrounding 
influences would triumph, and, when the novelty of the change 
had died out, things would go on very much as before ; while the 
well-intentioned but mistaken people, who have so kindly taken 
Boston under their guardianship, and feel such a lively interest 
in our welfare, would then probably have forgotten us among 
their multifarious avocations, and be busily engaged in legis- 
lating women into men, or in bringing about some other equally 
commendable and desirable reform. Do you remember the 
testimony of Major Jones, the Constable of the Commonwealth 
and of Colonel Kurtz ? Major Jones testified that at one time 
there was no bar in Boston where liquors were openly sold ; 
and Colonel Kurtz says that at that time more persons were 
arrested for intoxication than ever before. 



40 



I ask those gentlemen, who are conscientious supporters of 
the prohibitory law, whether it is wise in them, instead of 
patiently waiting for time to do their work, and to change the 
sentiment of Boston upon this subject, to endeavor to enforce 
the law in a manner which cannot but be offensive to us. If 
the prohibitory law be founded on sound principles of legisla- 
tion, you have no reason to suppose that the public opinion 
which opposes it will last very long. IThe truth will in the end 
conquer, and the public opinion of Boston will gradually come 
into harmony with what is said to be the opinion of the rest of 
the Commonwealth on this subject. But I do not think that 
you will hasten that change in the public opinion of Boston by 
the course you propose to pursue, which cannot but outrage our 
local pride by making a difference between us and the rest of 
the State, and by subjecting us to this new espionage. We 
cannot help entertaining this feeling of pride; we cannot 
help, being a little sensitive in regard to these constantly recur- 
ring efforts of people in the country to control our local affairs. 
We feel in this respect, as any class of New-Englanders would 
that these matters are our concern. It reminds me of the re- 
buke once given by Mr. Mason, the greatest lawyer we ever 
had in New England, to a judge who, as judges sometimes 
will, began to put questions to a witness, without much regard 
to the rules of evidence. " If your Honor," said he, " puts that 
question for us, we don't want it ; if you put it for the other 
side, I object to it as incompetent." And so we say in Boston : 
" If you attempt this as a favor to us, we don't want your assist- 
ance in enforcing the laws ; if you do so to please people 
outside of Boston, they have no right to interfere with our con- 
cerns." I do not mean no constitutional right, but no right 
according to the principles of government so firmly implanted 
in New England. 

I admit that the prohibitory law has never been effectually 
enforced in Boston, and only imperfectly in the State at large. 



41 

But is it the only law not enforced ? Take the Sunday law. 
Is that enforced in Boston, or even in Worcester, or in Spring- 
field, or in other parts of the Commonwealth ? Why, consider 
for a moment what rigid Sunday laws we have. Our courts 
have decided that a man is liable to punishment for getting into 
our street railway cars, and riding from one part of the city to 
the other ; and they very nearly decided that a man was liable 
to punishment for strolling out on Sunday. There is a very 
recent case to which I wish to call the Committee's attention, 
as showing what mischief is done by a partial enforcement 
of them. I do not think that it is very creditable to Massa- 
chusetts legislation that, at a time when the street cars are 
running in every direction on Sunday; when the keepers of 
livery stables consider Sunday as their best day ; when men 
of property are on that day driving in their carriages, for 
recreation; and when the Music Hall, Sunday evenings, is 
crowded with people, including ministers of the strictest denom- 
inations, to hear an oratorio, — I do not think it very creditable, 
in such a state of things all over the Commonwealth, that two 
laboring men in the County of Plymouth, should have been tried 
and convicted of gathering seaweed on Sunday evening, and 
that conviction been affirmed by the Supreme Court. Allow me 
to read a short extract from the opinion of the court in that 
case, as showing how extremely strict the law itself is, and 
how unjust and absurd — in the face of the usual disregard 
shown to it — a partial enforcement of it may be. Mr. Justice 
Hoar (now Attorney- Ueneral of the United States), who deliv- 
ered the judgment of the court, after stating, what is undoubt- 
edly true, that the fact that the seaweed would be carried away 
by the next tide did not make the gathering of it a labor " of 
charity or necessity " within the meaning of the statute, pro- 
ceeded as follows, and I am sure you will all relish the ex- 
quisite satire of his remarks. The learned judge says : — 
" If a vessel had been wrecked upon tlie beach, it would have been law- 



42 



ful to work on Sunday for the preservation of property which might be 
lost by delay. But, if the fish in the bay or the birds on the shore hap- 
pened to be uncommonly abundant on the Lord's day, it is equally clear 
that it would furnish no excuse for fishing or shooting on that day. How 
it would he if a whale happened to he stranded on the sJiore, we need not de- 
termine." 

There is an instance of the enforcement of the Sunday laws ! 
A poor man is told that to save property wrecked on Sunday is 
lawful ; to gather seaweed which might otherwise be lost is un- 
lawful ; and that^ as to the case of a stranded whale, that is a 
poser which the Supreme Judicial Court declines to answer. I 
am not quarrelling with the decision, which was right enough ; 
but wise men will think that, when the Sunday laws are reduced 
to such questions of casuistry as these, the matter had better be 
left to the conscience of the individual, and not be determined 
by statute. 

Take another instance. In New England, — and I think in New 
England alone, for it is not so at common law, and, if I am 
correctly informed, in any other of the states of the Union, — 
adultery is made a crime punishable with penal servitude in the 
State prison. Is that law enforced ? Why, sir, a distinguished 
Massachusetts judge, of great judicial experience told a friend of 
mine that he had granted divorces for the cause of adultery in 
every county in the Commonwealth, and yet had never known and 
never heard of a case where a criminal prosecution followed one 
of these divorces, although the guilt of the offending party had 
been proved by legal evidence. This took place, mark you, not 
only in the profligate county of Suffolk, where it might be 
ascribed to a " local public opinion" in Boston against chastity, 
but in every part of the Commonwealth, from the mountains of 
Berkshire to the sands of Barnstable. That law is, as a rule, a 
dead letter, and attempts to enforce it are almost all cases of 
revenge, or of levying blackmail ; or else where, in one of those 
fits of morality to which all communities are subject, the public 
seizes hold of some man, no worse than a hundred others, and 



43 



compels a reluctant district attorney to prosecute him ; and then 
the prosecution^ some how or other, seldom reaches final judg^ 
ment. It is not enforced because public opinion will not allow 
it to be enforced ; and those of you who remember the case of 
the Commonwealth vs. Kallock, tried at Cambridge ten or 
twelve years ago, and how the details of the evidence filled the 
newspapers day after day until the very air seemed tainted with 
them, may think that public opinion is not entirely wrong, and 
that there are some laws which had better not be enforced, even 
if they cannot be repealed. 

Now, in this view I wish to speak of the prohibitory law, and 
in special reference to matters which have taken place in the 
legislature this session. As the prohibitory law has been and 
will be enforced, it is in effect the most aristocratic statute ever 
enacted in Massachusetts. Has there ever been a time, does 
anybody here expect that there will be a time, when any man of 
wealth and position, living in any part of the Commonwealth, 
will not be able to obtain all the liquors he may desire ? Lately 
there was a conversation between a gentleman deeply interested 
in behalf of this law and a member of the Senate opposed to it 
which shows how the law is intended to be enforced. The latter 
said he had been that day to his wine merchant, and made some 
purchases of wines and that he could not help thinking, when 
he bought them, that the person who sold to him would be 
liable, should the law be reenacted, to be sent, for so doing, to 
the House of Correction ; whereupon, the other replied : " Why, 
you do not suppose that we are going to interfere with the busi- 
ness of so respectable a man as Mr. P ^ ! " No ; it is not 

intended to close up any but the small shops. The keepers of 
the large hotels sell without molestation to their guests. Those 
who buy liquors in large quantities find no difficulty in obtaining 
them. Men who are wealthy and fortunate enough to belong to 
any of the fashionable clubs of Boston, — the Temple, the 
Somerset or the Union, — sip their wine and spirits in perfect 



44 



security, while many a poor Irishman is hurried to the House of 
Correction for selling a glass of the national beverage to a 
countryman across the counter. If the only result of such an 
enforcement of the prohibitory law were to prevent the lower 
classes from getting liquor, I do not know that I should much 
object to it; for I can easily understand the argument of some 
people that the poorer a man is, the less he can afford to in- 
dulge in intoxication. But the effect of this partial enforcement 
of it upon the poorer classes, I think, is that they drink 
quite as much if not more liquor, and of a worse quality, and 
likewise pay a higher price for it ; and, besides, such a distinc- 
tion made between them and others is likely to engender in 
their minds a feeling that there is one law for the rich, and 
another for the poor, which, in a country where all vote, is not 
only injurious, but dangerous. 

Is it worth while to clamor for a State police to enforce the 
prohibitory law, when a large proportion of those who support it 
agree with one of the most trusted advocates of the cause that 
it is not intended strictly to enforce it, or to interfere with 
the habits of society, but only to keep the standard high ? 
If that is the feeling among many of the advocates of prohibi- 
tion, and such their expectation, is it worth while to make such 
a change as you propose to in the laws and institutions of 
Massachusetts, and offend as seriously as you will the public 
opinion of Boston, for the sake of a little change in the degree 
of severity with which the law is to be enforced ? For, after 
al3, the difference between the enforcement of the law with our 
present police, and that enforcement of the law which people of 
experience expect to see after this proposed bill has been 
passed, is one purely of degree. But if this proposed bill be 
a wise and desirable measure on general principles, yet the fact 
that it is intended chiefly to secure the enforcement of the pro- 
hibitory law will create a strong public opinion against it; and 
not alone in Boston, for, if you were to poll the entire State 



45 

to-day, you would find public opinion almost equally divided on 
the question of prohibition. You are going to combine two 
unpopular laws together in a manner which may be injurious if 
not fatal to both. Whatever may be said to dissociate them, 
however positively you may declare that they stand independ- 
ently of each other, the public believes, and I think believe 
justly, that one is intended to bolster up the other. And, unless 
the principal and moving object for which you propose to take 
the control of the police from the citizens of Boston and transfer 
it to the State, is to enforce this prohibitory law, and while 
there are grave dftubts in the minds of many as to the wisdom 
of this proposed bill, do you not think it would be a little better 
to wait until public opinion in Boston, as well as the rest of the 
Commonwealth, turns in your favor on the subject of pro- 
hibition? Do you not think it would be wiser to concede to us, 
who honestly cannot go at so gTcat a pace in reform as you can, 
some indulgence, and to humor us a little, and not attempt to 
enforce obedience to two laws, one of which many of us think 
interferes with our municipal and the other with our personal 
rights ? Wait until the change you anticipate in public opinion 
here in regard to prohibition takes place, and then you will be 
much better able to judge whether you want a State police at 
all. We have heard a good deal about the rumsellers and 
thieves and other criminal classes in Boston being united and 
banded together. Mr. Chairman, you have no reason to fear 
them. The only serious obstacle in your way is the honest pub- 
lic opinion existing here, as I said before. If the prohibitory 
law be sound in principle, sooner or later public opinion every- 
where will sustain it. 

These are what I consider to be some of the arguments 
against these proposed measures. I wish to speak of one thing 
with the utmost delicacy, which does not offend me, while I 
cannot forget it. In conversations with many members of your 
honorable committee, they have told me that, they came to this 



46 



hearing with their minds fully made up in favor of a State police 
bill, and I cannot help feeling that, while all are anxious to treat me 
fairly, my arguments are addressed to many gentlemen whose 
opinions on this subject are too firm to be afiected by any consid- 
erations I may submit. I only ask those persons, with many thanks 
to them and to you all for your kind and indulgent attention, to 
hesitate a moment before they report a bill, and to consider 
whether it may not be best to delay this measure another year. 
Perhaps a commission can be appointed to inquire into the entire 
subject with greater care than your limited time and other duties 
have permitted to you ; but do not plunge at one leap into this 
great chasm of change before you. I know that this long hear- 
ing may go with you for nothing. The Emperor Sigismund was 
above grammar, and the Great and General Court of Massachu- 
setts may be above logic ; but I do not yet believe it, and am 
confident that the legislature will listen to what I consider the 
unanswerable arguments against the proposition before you, 
however imperfectly they may have been presented. If not, if 
the minds of a majority are made up, I most respectfully warn 
you that you may be opening to us a road which will end in 
changes which we shall all hereafterwards lament ; that a blow 
may be struck at New England self-government, from which it 
will never recover. In the words of a distinguished living 
orator, I may say that " we are about to surrender certain good 
for more than doubtful change ; we are about to barter maxims 
and traditions that have never failed for theories and doctrines 
that have never succeeded." 



ARGUMENT 



MADE BEFORE A 



JOINT COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATUKE 
OF MASSACHUSETTS, 



]MAY 17, 1869, 



AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A 



State Police in the City of Boston, 



BY 



CLEMENT HUGH HILL 



Phonographically Reported bv Henry Oviatt. 




BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SOX, CITY PKINTERS, Si SCHOOL STREET. 

1869. 



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